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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25157209">sorry i left, but it was for the best</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia'>brophigenia</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>? sorta, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Doomed Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Grinding, Kissing, M/M, Masturbation, Post-Break Up, Post-The Dream Thieves, Sadness, Senior year, Unhealthy Relationships, Voyeurism, but both of them have EMOTIONS, only one person has an orgasm, sad heaux skov, star-crossed lovers, takes place sometime during the raven king</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:14:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,819</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25157209</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>come over &amp; fuck me,</i> Skov snapped back with a blurry picture of the wall, <i>im drunk &amp; sad.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>(AKA, Skov and Swan, Post-K.)</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Skov/Swan (Raven Cycle)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sorry i left, but it was for the best</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Did I snap my ex back at midnight the other night and end up hooking up with him because I'm RIDICULOUS? </p><p>Yes.</p><p>Did I then write Skovwan fic about it? </p><p>Yes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>i love you so much</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>but do me a favor baby- don’t reply</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was aimlessly swiping left and right on Tinder, boys and girls of all ages, up to 50 miles away. It was pointless. Stupid. Nothing fucking mattered, in this suffocating bubble. Nothing but counting down the minutes until graduation. Until he was out of this place. This town. This fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>state. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If Jacek Skovron never set foot again in Virginia, it would be too fucking soon. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sam, 21 </span>
  </em>
  <span>was left-swiped. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ty, 24 </span>
  </em>
  <span>went right. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Alex, 19 </span>
  </em>
  <span>and grinning, flicked to the left. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Snapchat notified him of a new message from </span>
  <em>
    <span>swannnnny. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He remembered typing in that nickname, years ago now. When everything was different. When he was fifteen. He thought about changing it. Thought about deleting Swan altogether, from his phone and his life, only clutching onto his memories, hazy as they were. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The snap was nothing special, Swan’s knees and the screen of his half-cracked flatscreen tv, </span>
  <em>
    <span>South Park. </span>
  </em>
  <span>One of the earlier episodes. Cartman frozen mid-word. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Goddamn, Skov hated </span>
  <em>
    <span>South Park. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hated the smell of Swan’s room, stale pot smoke and Fruit Loops and Earl Grey. Hated Swan’s single pillow, gross from the mildewed saliva leftover from how many times Skov had bitten into it to keep from crying out like a bitch while Swan fucked him too-good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He hadn’t been in Swan’s room since the beginning of the year, August, with the building’s AC broken and Swan’s hands so far away from him he’d nearly vomited from anxiety. A whole fucking summer without a word, and there they’d been, talking all formal like they’d not spent junior year in a drug-induced haze trying to forget K and Proko and the Fourth. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>come over &amp; fuck me, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he sent back with a blurry picture of the wall, </span>
  <em>
    <span>im drunk &amp; sad. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>ampersands,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Skov felt like such a tool, and he wasn’t even drinking, lying through his teeth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t drunk, but he could be by the time Swan arrived. Because of course he’d come. Skov tossed down his phone, uncaring to wait for a response. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had a single room, courtesy of senior prefect privileges. His parents had made a hefty donation to get him admitted to the snooty ranks of the ‘fects; Skov mostly just wore the badge on the wrong side of his blazer and slept through the meetings. Nobody said anything to him; the other prefects knew their place on the food chain. Skov was captain of the soccer team. His father had more money than theirs. He could spit in their fucking mouths and they’d have to swallow it down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>None of it meant </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He gargled the illicit scotch, amber-dark and burning thickly down his throat, making him both nauseous and horny with sense memories that came welling up like tears, gathering stubbornly on his lashes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He wasn’t good at being alone.) </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan knocked, where before he’d have just barged in, or, more likely, have been there all along. Never far from Skov’s side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Never straying. Never gone.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His antidepressants didn’t mix well with dark liquor. Skov answered the door and felt like he couldn’t control his face, whatever expression it was twisting into of its own accord. Whatever it was, Swan looked at him like he was half-dissolved, all pity and fathomless regret. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made Skov feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>sick. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He took off his shirt, tossed it to the side and plastered himself to Swan’s front, stumbling a little over the mess underfoot, cleats and pads and garbage. He was a fucking mess. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan caught him. Touched him the bare minimum, careful. That made Skov sick, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once they’d touched so often that everything had seemed normal; once they’d been fucking so often that it seemed like as normal a bodily function as eating or taking a piss. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skov bit Swan’s chin, his lower lip, his jaw. Tried to worry a hickey into the skin there, lurid and high enough not to be hidden. Swan caught him by the throat, jerked him back, warning in his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Skov thought about all the people Swan probably knew now, about how they’d not fucked in almost a whole goddamn year. Maybe he’d found some cool guy back home in London, or maybe his grandma had introduced him to a posh girl suitable to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>Mrs. Swan </span>
  </em>
  <span>in a few years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan would marry some beautiful girl; Skov would, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, when K was alive and dreams were real, Skov had imagined </span>
  <em>
    <span>(let </span>
  </em>
  <span>himself imagine) a different kind of future for them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were living in the broken remains of that world, now. Everything was crumbling around them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jacek.” Swan murmured, and Skov’s whole face </span>
  <em>
    <span>twisted. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Repulsed. </span>
</p><p><span>“Don’t call</span> <span>me that.” He thought of tacking on a sneered </span><em><span>Reginald </span></em><span>to the end of the directive and couldn’t make himself do it. They were not </span><em><span>Jacek</span></em><span> and </span><em><span>Reginald.</span></em><span> Not here. Not now. </span></p><p>
  <span>Fuck, just one more night. Skov wanted one more night. Tomorrow he’d be Jacek; tomorrow, he’d delete Swan’s number and flush the last of K’s impossible trinkets down the fucking toilet. He’d grow up, and live in the real goddamn world. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tomorrow. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck me,” he demanded, letting himself be manhandled onto his narrow single bed before the words were even fully out of his mouth. It was gonna hurt. He’d not been fucked by anyone else in the whole time Swan had been… </span>
  <em>
    <span>away </span>
  </em>
  <span>from him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d rather die than admit it, but he didn’t want anyone else but Swan to be inside him. Not ever. Nobody else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan kissed lushly from one side of Skov’s throat to the other, all clever tongue and soft lips. They were pressed so closely together, Skov’s legs twined around his so tight that Swan couldn’t even pull back to get at his ass, or search for the lube. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Baby,” Swan whispered, like a man might speak to a steadily-ticking bomb. “Let me up.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” The refusal was a mouthful of crisp vehemence hurled from Skov’s vocal chords to Swan’s ears. Too-loud. “Just, like this.” Skov’s hands clutched at his back. Needy. He was trembling all over. “Jerk off. Come on me.” He might’ve been cold, in only those thin boxer briefs, except for the high flush in his cheeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck, he was so pretty. It made it hard for Swan to think, or maybe for him to </span>
  <em>
    <span>stop </span>
  </em>
  <span>thinking. Skov looked so good that he couldn’t help but remember when he’d looked like a regular kid, a knobby-kneed teenager before they’d taken advantage of what K had offered them, magic torn from some terrible eldritch place in his blackened soul.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck, they’d practically sold their souls to K, hadn’t they? Eaten the apple and damned the consequences, becoming what they’d wanted to be, shallow and fourteen and hypnotically enamored of a boy-demon wearing battered Vans. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’d buried </span>
  <em>
    <span>bodies </span>
  </em>
  <span>for K. They’d pretended not to notice the ways Proko came back </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They’d done so much. They’d seen so much. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan couldn’t look at Skov without remembering it all; emotion rose in him and he could not parse whether it was sorrow or horror or some terrible mixture of the two. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He could almost convince himself that he’d been seduced into it, that Skov had dragged him along unwillingly, except for how he’d bitten into the apple with his own fucking teeth. How he’d helped them shovel dirt in the night-stricken woods outside of Henrietta’s city limits with his own fucking hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>How he’d come here now, at Skov’s beckoning, and would do anything he asked, up to and including murder, even still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They couldn’t go on like this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were so fucking bad for each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan jerked himself off, tucking the head of his cock up underneath the hem of Skov’s underwear, smearing precome onto the fabric and the bony curve of Skov’s pale ass, grunting like he was being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. A guttural noise. Skov looked up at him with fever-bright eyes, touching his lips with trembling fingertips. Skov looked up at him like he was seeing God.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” Swan bit out, taking those fingertips in, ungentle with his teeth. “Fuck, Skov, fuck, I’m gonna-” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do it,” Skov whispered, vehement, and wrapped his free hand around Swan’s throat. “Look at me. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Do it.”</span>
  </em>
  <span> It would take more than that, and Skov knew it- Swan couldn’t look at him, couldn’t concentrate. Could only worm his hand between sweat-slick skin and the sweat-soaked sheets to grip Skov’s clothed ass cheek in the palm of his unoccupied hand, gasping against the pleasure, against the hold that Skov had on him. He wanted to bury his face into Skov’s throat, to suck a dark bruise at the crook of his neck and shoulder, purple-blue, indelible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan wanted many things, and knew that they’d never happen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He came with a muttered </span>
  <em>
    <span>Skov, I’m- </span>
  </em>
  <span>and immediately was rolled away by insistently pushing hands, bony knees, more limbs than ought to have been attached to one eighteen-year-old boy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fucking gross,” Skov mumbled, referring to the mess they’d made of his sheets, perfunctorily stripping off his boxers and tearing the bedding away from the mattress so he could fling it violently into the nearby hamper, overflowing. Next came his robe, which had been a gift from his sister and was monogrammed on the chest. He’d never worn it before, or at least not in Swan’s recollection. He seemed at ease shrugging it on and belting it tight, hiding his strawberry-flushed skin from view. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to shower.” Skov said, though he was still hard and it wasn’t well-concealed by the dark green velvet. “I need to do laundry.” It seemed like he’d forgotten Swan was even in the room; he stood like a ghost with his cock hanging limp out of his pants and watched Skov bustle around, flexing his hands, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>looking </span>
  </em>
  <span>at him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ducky-” Swan tried, soft and useless, wincing even before he’d said the word, somehow worse than when he’d tried to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>Jacek </span>
  </em>
  <span>earlier. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Skov said sharply, not looking at him still. Looking pointedly </span>
  <em>
    <span>away, </span>
  </em>
  <span>in fact. Avoidance was the New England WASP’s preferred art form. Skov had never seemed so grown-up than he did at that instant, in his posh robe with the tips of his ears blood-red and his shoulders drawn nearly up to meet them, a memorial sculpted from ice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Swan was not a kind man, but he was not a cruel one, either. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodbye.” He murmured as he left, hoping that he’d not come back. Hoping that Skov wouldn’t invite him again. Hoping that they could both just stay apart, for however many years they both lived in this world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Knowing that it was useless to hope for the impossible, a thing which had died two years ago in a trashed field on the Fourth of July. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>don’t tell me you’re fine</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>oh, honey, you don’t have to lie</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>follow me on tumblr @ brophigenia.tumblr.com</p><p>check out my patreon @ patreon.com/brophigenia</p></blockquote></div></div>
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